A ruthless mob boss offered me $10,000 to heal his paralyzed body for my sick son's sake, completely unaware that his bodyguard had targeted the wrong doctor.

The world stopped.

The air rushed out of my lungs as if I had been hit by a truck. *Oliver.*

“No,” I choked out, stumbling back from the parallel bars. “No, no, no!”

Sebastian didn’t fall. When the alarm sounded and Marco’s words echoed through the gym, something fundamentally terrifying happened to him. The physical exhaustion, the trembling in his quadriceps, the nineteen years of atrophy—all of it vanished behind a wall of pure, crystalline fury.

He reached out, caught the bar with one hand, and stepped deliberately back into his wheelchair.

“Marco,” Sebastian spoke into the wall comm, his voice terrifyingly quiet. “Report.”

*“Dominic brought four SUVs, boss,”* Marco gasped, the sound of distant gunfire echoing in the background. *“They took the perimeter guards out with suppressed weapons before we knew what was happening. Vance is with him. They went straight to the west wing suite. Boss... Dominic knows. Vance found Evans’ surgical clinic in Cicero. They know you cut the clip out.”*

I collapsed against the wall, my hands tangled in my hair, hysterical sobs clawing their way up my throat. “He has Oliver. He has my baby. Oh God, Sebastian, he’s going to kill him—”

Sebastian spun his chair, closing the distance between us in a heartbeat. He grabbed both of my arms, his grip like iron bands, forcing me to look directly into his blazing amber eyes.

“Listen to me, Clare,” he commanded, his baritone cutting through my panic like a scalpel. “Look at me!”

I looked, trembling violently, tears streaming down my cheeks.

“Dominic took Oliver because he thinks the boy is his only leverage,” Sebastian said, each word deliberate and cold as ice. “He doesn't want to kill him in my house. He needs him alive to force me to sign over the family trusts and the docks authority at the commission summit tonight. As long as Dominic thinks I am still a cripple who needs your hands to stay alive, Oliver is safe. Do you understand me?”

“We have to save him,” I wept. “He needs his medicine, Sebastian! His lungs—”

“Marco!” Sebastian barked into the radio. “Did the boy have his emergency kit?”

*“I packed it into Dominic’s lead car myself at gunpoint, boss,”* Marco replied. *“I told Dominic the kid would drop dead of bronchospasm in thirty minutes if they didn't keep the nebulizer running. Dominic took it. He wants the kid breathing when you arrive at the summit.”*

Sebastian released my arms and rolled toward the heavy steel gun safe hidden behind the gymnasium paneling. He punched in an eight-digit code.

The door swung open to reveal an arsenal: custom Colt .45s, submachine guns, spare magazines, and tactical vests.

Sebastian pulled out two heavy semi-automatic pistols, checked the chambers with practiced, lethal speed, and slid them into shoulder holsters beneath his heavy dark coat.

“Where is the summit?” I asked, wiping my tears with the back of my hand, forcing the terror down into the darkest corner of my heart.

“The penthouse of the Drake Hotel,” Sebastian said, sliding a sleek, black-handled combat knife into his boot sheath. “The top floor. The bosses of the five Chicago families are gathering at eight o'clock to ratify the redistribution of my territory. Dominic called the meeting. He thinks he’s going to roll me into that ballroom, put a pen in my hand with your son's life on the line, and watch me sign away my life before he throws me out the window.”

He looked up at me.

“He thinks I’m the same helpless invalid he’s been laughing at for twenty years.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

Sebastian reached out and took my hand. His palm was warm, calloused, and unyielding.